The Vicissitudes of Life

I love the word vicissitudes.  I happened upon it several years ago while researching a project about Oregon pioneers.  It was love at first sound.  I cannot think of a more beautiful word to describe trials and troubles.  I have not blogged in a few weeks due to this wonderful word.  I suffered a rather painful back injury about two weeks ago.  Today is the first day sitting at the computer long enough to write a blog post is not hurting so bad I want to lie down.  In fact, it does not hurt at all.  A miracle!  (Now if I can just bend over my work table to cut out some patterns without that hurting.)  I still have to be extremely careful picking up my baby, but today I actually laid her down in her crib all by myself – another miracle!

I just wanted to publicly express my appreciation to all the people who have brought in meals and sent sweet cards.  My dear friend, Adrienne,  has dropped everything to come give my baby a bath, bring me dinner, and watch Alyx everyday so that I can take my older kids to swimming lessons (I cannot sit and hold my baby on bleachers – nor can I get her in and out of a car (thank you Djeryd!).  And a huge thank you goes out to my sister who gave up a weekend of hiking and camping with her family to come here and take care of me while Sean and the boys were out of town.  She cleaned my bathrooms (they were scary), did all my laundry, washed my dishes, cuddled my sweet baby, and took care of me. 

I love this picture of us because it captures what a wonderful sister she is to me.  There I am blabbing my head off and she is listening so intently and sincerely.  I think the reason I wish I had about 5 sisters is because the one I do have is so incredibly wonderful.  Thank you, Ya;  I love you forever!